Installation, configuration, and calibration of an RF tag based object tracking system for use in a sports environment is a labor intensive and iterative process that requires expert knowledge. Receivers are first installed around a perimeter of the sports environment and each receiver is manually aimed, by eye, at a predetermined location within the sporting environment such that uniform coverage of a specific region of the sports environment (e.g., a portion of a playing surface) is achieved. An initial system performance evaluation is completed by recording and manually analyzing location data determined by the object tracking system for an RF tag placed on a technician as he/she walks a predetermined path within the sports environment. The predetermined path is designed to establish receiver coverage of the sports environment by the object tracking system.
This recording and manual analysis process is iteratively repeated, typically using three different paths of increasing granularity. After analyzing the location data from a current path, the technician will either manually adjust one or both of pan and tilt of one or more receivers and repeat the current path, or continue the process by performing the next path.
This approach requires that the technician has a system expert's intimate knowledge of receiver characteristics and associated skill to extract information from the location data recorded for each test path. The expert knowledge required is at a very high premium and the application of the knowledge varies from technician to technician.
Thus, installation of an RF tag based object tracking system (a) requires highly specific expert knowledge, (b) is time intensive, (c) is a labor intensive incremental adjustment process, (d) may result in the RE tag based object tracking system operating at adequate but not optimal performance, and (e) result in inconsistent performance from installation to installation.